MOSCOW, October 24. /TASS/. Ten employees of the Russian consulate general in Poznan will have to leave Poland due to Warsaw’s decision to shut down this consular office, Polish Foreign Ministry Spokesman Pawel Wronski told the PAP news agency.
"Three diplomats and five administrative and technical employees will have to leave the Russian consulate in Poland, as well as two employees that were supposed to get accredited in Poland, but they are not getting that accreditation now," the diplomat said.
He noted that the exact timeline for the consulate staff to leave the republic is currently unclear, but speculated that this may happen by early November.
On October 22, Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski announced the decision to shut down the Russian consulate general in Poznan, adding that its staff will have to leave the republic in the upcoming days. Until now, three Russian consulates operated in Poland: in Krakow in the south, in Poznan in the West and in Gdansk in the north. Three Polish consulates remain open in Russia so far: in Kaliningrad, in St. Petersburg and in Irkutsk. In addition, Sikorski speculated that the Russian envoy might be expelled in the future. Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that Russia won’t hesitate to provide a response to Poland’s decision to shut down the consulate general in Poznan. She also noted that Moscow has once again witnessed a display of a "rampant Russophobia, multiplied by some morbid spy mania."